" Natural Selection " 55 



favourable variations, or of variations which are of no 

 utility to the organism," because they happen to be 

 co-related with organs or structures that are useful. 

 They point out the great importance of the co-relation 

 of organs, and that this phenomenon has been quite 

 neglected by zoologists who have followed Darwin, 

 and add significantly : " This is an example of the 

 manner in which the superficial theories which to-day 

 command wide acceptance have tended to bar the 

 way to research." After such a statement — a direct 

 attack on the accepted creed of science, and the sole 

 basis of the " survival of the fittest " — surely we have 

 every right to expect due consideration of that which 

 explains the hitherto unexplainable, and relegates the 

 Darwinian theory to the position of a mere hypothesis 

 which has proved a barrier, although only a temporary 

 one, in the way of scientific discovery. 



Dewar and Finn in discussing what Romanes calls 

 prototypic evolution, quote Darwin (" Origin of 

 Species "), showing that he was of opinion that 

 natural selection is able to bring this about. They 

 write : " Darwin tacitly assumes, in the illustration he 

 gives, that the various races of the carnivorous animals 

 are in some way prevented from intercrossing ; for, if 

 they breed indiscriminately, these races will tend to 

 be obliterated." This is the first time, so far as we know, 

 that scientific men have pointed out the impossibility 

 of the survival of variation. We have only to use our 

 powers of observation in regard to the human race to 

 assure ourselves of this. We have diversities of races 

 produced through environment. Sports of all kinds 

 appear from time to time, but these particular charac- 

 teristics, whatever they may be, are not perpetuated ; 

 they may be passed on for one, two, or three genera- 

 tions ; but the inevitable always happens, and back we 

 come, as Paulin pointed out before any other observer, 



